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You can scratch one wish off your list. The Ford app gives you the ability to see what the pro power is doing as far as electrical load and lets you turn it on and off from your phone.

I do think they're on to something with the solar tiles if they can provide a good amount of power.....eliminate the ugly panels and just have a roof. I've really not looked into it enough, but I wonder what the lifespan of those are compared to a normal roof. And how they perform in hurricanes.....

They didn’t plan for this worst case scenario. Happens a lot. Doesn’t matter if it’s private or govt. But private industry can and probably will respond faster than a govt agency.

No, I’m asking business to make a wise decision. I want government to stay out of it. Many of the environmental issues government blames on industry are due to half baked government policies.

The demand is limited and seems to be only Tesla. They have what 2-3% market share? Subaru gets that. Mazda gets that. So far, it is a niche being propped up by government incentives and venture capital. Bronco was oversold overnight. Mach e, not so much. The fact that Ford set the residual on the Mach e as low as it is, tells me they aren’t confident in the demand. We’ll see. I might buy one in a couple years. Possibly used if the residual estimate turns out to be correct. They look like decent commuter cars.

Interesting post with data, graphs, and recommendations from Cascend Strategy.

Funny... weeks back the mill was producing the fear almost hourly. "they took 5 people out from the motor line that were sweating and coughing" "Lear walked out!!!" "Stamping had a hole department on quarantined" etc etc etc What happened? Its been weeks since the sheepies have contemplated walking off or rumoring they were going to walk off.... How come the book of faces or the tweeties haven`t been all a blur with the rona that has taken over CAP?

Ford and VW look to be a good fit as far as this alliance extends but also, VW is doing a lot of work with electrifying heavy road transport, that may be an opportunity for Ford to co-invest and re-enter class 8 with some more VW help.

F150 is a "kid hauler" along with other similar sized light duties...ram seized on the dynamics of what the light duties actually are used for and started marketing "ride comfort"...you have to be in f350 range before they can really pull any serious work duties..of course ford will sell a PS to the mass idiots with the f250 and i would like to know the marketing breakdowns....camper 3 times a year? - (80mph on i90 in 40 miles cross winds and they will tell you its all safe yet beyond tow spec rating) and rest of time the light duty hauls the groceries but they feel superior because by gosh its a f250 with a PS...

$2.50-$3 gas has been the norm around here for the past decade. I think it will take $4 gas to make any significant change in buying behavior. Particularly when many people will still be working from home and driving less. inflation has been just around the corner with the low interest rates and money printing for the last decade. Still hasn’t materialized. I do expect it to at some point. The pent up demand will likely be in tourism as folks try to see friends and relatives they haven’t seen in 18 months.

Even then it'll be hard to truly gauge with how production constrained they are 50k production this year, with half of that going overseas.....so it'll be interesting to see if they get around that 25k mark this year or not. They're around 250 I think so far.

I will say the govt can be better in one circumstance - where a private company decides not to do something because it hurts their profitability. E.g safety recalls.

Oh you should see the "Oh Toyota does this too, you can get any inverter at an auto parts place" excusers... luckily enough people are trying to "educate" why the F150 Hybrid is different, than just an inverter...

I won't argue there. Government in itself is a monopoly, there's no incentive for them to be quick, do it right or the most efficient way possible.

Exactly. Sometimes cheap and easy changes are all that you really need. Especially process changes, Also, you don’t have to eliminate the problem completely. E.g. a 4 hour rolling blackout once a day would suck but it’s really just a minor inconvenience if it happens once every 20 years,

The problem is you’re asking government to make a wise decision. There's is no government on any level in the US that is capable of doing that at the moment. What’s more likely is they will just throw a bunch of money at it and hope it goes away.

You do root cause analysis and identify corrective or preventative actions. Then you weigh the cost of those actions against the impact of not doing them which includes frequency of occurrence. Maybe a better/faster more prepared deicing plan for the wind turbines and minor improvements in the natural gas infrastructure would be enough.

Yeah they were the big winner with the 2019 redesign. There has never been that great of a leap between generations of US trucks ever. The crazy part is that the previous one was very good as well. I think Ram does well because focus on what matters. Ride, interior, powertrain, etc. A lot of the reviews I’ve read about the new f150 say that Ram still has a clear advantage in the interior. Having ridden in all of the new trucks it’s immediately clear the ride is superior too. I think that’s a testament to Ram understanding the truck market better than anyone. They know the vast majority of trucks are used as minivans to shuttle people around and thus the emphasis on interior quality and ride. A good friend of mine bought a Silverado over the summer and when compared to the Ram it comes up very short. But it’s still a great truck and has a stout powertrain. He’s even pleased with having the 8-speed vs the problematic 10-speed. He’s a Ford guy at heart but between the quality problems and the pricing, he got a much better deal with nicer options than a comparable f150. I think that’s why GM did so well with their trucks last year.

A few people I follow on twitter live in Texas and got by with the Tesla power wall and solar tiles. Never lost power once and the tiles still worked even after being completely covered with snow. Honestly, it really sold me on the system. I probably won't invest in it for my current house but when we do move in a few years I will definitely look into it.

You made my point, though. Tesla is a niche player. Their profits aren’t huge. They rely on government subsidies and venture capital to survive. Lots of money propping it up so, short selling doesn’t work. If you have data on people actually desiring the electric cars that can be built and not “unicorns” that are only vapor ware please share. I may change my mind. The last one I saw basically said people would take an electric car if it was given to them, not that they would pay more for one because it was desirable. Tesla hit a sweet spot with the Model 3 that drastically increased sales. In my area it has replaced the BMW 3 series as the look at me status symbol. I just don’t think that market is much bigger than it currently is. A year or two of Mach e sales will be necessary to see what trend there is. Same with the BEV F150. Maybe Ford has internal data proving you are correct. I just won’t believe all in on BEV is the correct choice until I see some profitable sales materialize. I think the “All in” is a marketing sales pitch to prop up the stock price and get better finance terms along with government subsidies. Government compliance mandates may lead to an all BEV future, but it won’t be profitable if there is no customer buy in. It is evidence of customer buy in that I’m looking for.

Yup...time to learn from the experience and move on. If we want greater reliability in our infrastructure we have to pay for it one way or another. Ford certainly got some good publicity for the powerboost f150. Let’s hope Ford has enough batteries to keep up with demand. Powerboost intro seems to be following the same success story as the original 3.5l ecoboost. “Experts” said customers don’t want a v6 truck....then they said they won’t buy a hybrid truck, especially when gas prices are low. What they missed was the utility Ford brought to the table with both.

It's really awesome. Check out You tube. There are quite a few videos out that show how it works. It will kill some time. ? I wanted one soooo bad. Now if only they made it in a Superduty!

Nice. Had no idea and hadn’t seen it demonstrated. Thanks for the info!

I officially want a bronco with pro power onboard. I want that transfer switch setup.

Thanks fmccap, here it is without a WSJ subscription. https://archive.fo/7jY4N Will there ever be an awakening of the herd of sheepies...?

...the danger being people will scream, "just do something!" and something then will be done, possibly making things worse, but in different and exciting ways!

They are heading in the direction you want them to go. I think Ford needs to still invest in ice powertrains. It is too early for a full switch to bev with lots of profit left to be made. Not investing in powertrains for your core products is short sighted and could be disasterous. Watch FCA rack up record profits selling hemi v8 and hellcats as others abandon the space to chase the green dream.

I think the numbers show that RAM got the conquest sales.

It really is outrageous that all safety features are not included in the base model, LED being one of them. 20-40K profit on each of these trucks. No excuse for being cheap.

I like my Ford trucks but the being said, LED should be standard on all their vehicles. They dont offer them just to get people to bump up the package and I resent that. It is standard on some economy models. Thats an insult. Im paying $70k and LED is not standard ? WTF Ford ? Getting people to upgrade is the only reason. So not cool. What you are talking about is the example. LED lights do not cost them more. Im just going to do aftermarket bulbs and save $2k.

No they haven’t started shipping at all. We just returned to work on February 8th. All units are being held right now as we just started building them. We built 187 in January. Then the chip shortage happened . We are currently building roughly 800 per shift.

So you are saying there is still a chance of a Hellcat Pacifica?